Gromyko: Star Wars Will Foil Space Alliance

October 17, 1985|By James Fisher of The Sentinel Staff

MOSCOW — Sticking firmly to his country's party line, Soviet President Andrei Gromyko told a U.S. delegation Wednesday that the United States must give up its Star Wars research before the two superpowers can cooperate in space.

Delegation members said, however, they still believe some joint space projects are possible.

''It was not a meeting I came away from with a superb feeling of cooperation . . . but the door is not closed,'' said U.S. Rep. Manuel Lujan, R-N.M.

Gromyko is the Soviets' top government official, although the position is largely ceremonial.

His response Wednesday reaffirmed U.S. officials' belief that the prospects for major cooperation in space likely will be influenced by the outcome of arms negotiations at next month's summit in Geneva.

The delegation of congressmen, Apollo-Soyuz astronauts, NASA officials and others was to return to Washington today after a four-day tour of Soviet space sites and meetings with Soviet scientists and government officials to promote a renewal of cooperation in space.

Leading the group was U.S. Rep. Bill Nelson of Melbourne, chairman of the House Space Science and Applications subcommittee. Nelson is to fly aboard the space shuttle in December.

Before meeting with Gromyko, the delegation was given a rare tour of Star City, the training ground for cosmonauts in the wooded countryside 40 miles northwest of Moscow.

Gromyko played host to the eight congressmen, two Apollo-Soyuz astronauts and Thomas Paine, chairman of the National Commission on Space, during a 2 1/ 2-hour meeting and tour of the Kremlin.

Nelson and Gromyko were seen on Soviet television, and the Soviet news agency Tass reported on the meeting, emphasizing that cooperation cannot exist with Star Wars looming in the background.

''Cooperation in such conditions would just be a screen, a cover for plans of militarization of near-Earth space,'' Tass reported Gromyko as saying.

The congressmen Wednesday reiterated their objections to the Soviet militarization of space and brought up the issue of Soviet violations of human rights.

At the end of the trip, the group maintained there is still hope for some cooperation.

They cited the Soviets' positive attitude toward multinational space projects in which the United States could participate, and the ongoing informal exchange of data between the countries.

Nelson said the talks with scientists also will foster a better working relationship and possibly more exchanges of information.

The United States has proposed that the two countries renew a formal space cooperation agreement that was allowed to lapse in 1982 in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and declaration of martial law in Poland. This week top Soviet scientists said they believe their government would agree to include renewal of the agreement on the agenda at the Geneva summit.

The congressmen will file a report on their discussions to help the United States prepare for the summit.

The group's final Soviet excursion took them outside Moscow, past cooperative farms and through berry-filled woods to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center at Star City.

In 1961, Gagarin became a national hero by being the first man to fly into space. He was killed in a plane crash in 1968.

Star City is the permanent home of the Soviet corps of military cosmonauts and the temporary quarters for civilian cosmonauts while they train for missions.

The delegation was greeted by Alexei Leonov, one of two cosmonauts on the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz flight. The stocky Leonov joked throughout the 2-hour tour. At one point he sat on a bus seat next to Nelson's mink-clad wife, Grace, put his arm around her and called out to her husband: ''Bye-bye.''

The 25-year-old training center has the same campus atmosphere as Johnson Space Center in Houston, but the yellow brick buildings are more spread out and the grounds are not well kept.

Leonov showed the group flight simulators for the Soviet Soyuz-T spacecraft and the Salyut space station, which are in warehouse-type rooms with computer equipment nearby.

The delegation also inspected a centrifuge, a 61-foot arm used to simulate the increased gravitational force that space travelers feel during launch. As part of their training, cosmonauts ride on the arm as it swings rapidly around a circular room.

Soviet trainers also have built a circular water tank for underwater training to simulate working in zero gravity. The tank closely resembles the NASA tank at Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The centrifuge and tank have been built since the Apollo-Soyuz mission, but little else that the group was shown had been upgraded in 10 years, said former astronaut Deke Slayton, who flew on the mission and trained at Star City.